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When the mind is juggling around multiple things, the moist and the sound of an early morning rain calms us down. That’s how I came across the above image of the rain by amandabhslater and sound of the rain by Effib.

I was puzzled on what concept to write about for my media lab 2 and was indecisive for quite a long time. Sometimes, when I have the work undone, it will pop up in my sub-conscious mind even when I am asleep. When such thought arose one early morning, I also heard the sound of the rain and felt the moist near the window sill. In that sub-conscious, sleepy mode, I decided on looking and finalizing the image and audio about the rain and that’s what you all see here.

I have so many, varied experiences with rain. I have drenched to bone in rain, cried in rain, hated the rain, feared the rain; Rain gives me pleasure, it shows me the pain, it had made me miss someone terribly; it makes me clean, it makes me dirty, it clears up my mind and it confuses me. The day, the situation where and when it rains decides which mood its going to shove me into.

When I couple the above image of the rain with the audio, it gives me a flash of all memories and experiences, I had with rain in a second. I am uncertain if the image or the audio presented separately would give the same feel as we see it together. There is always a power when things come together than singularity.

It’s early on a Saturday morning, you and your friends have been talking about the swell coming through all week, getting more pumped each day as the weekend approaches. You stop to get some coffee to fuel up before the long sessions ahead and then pull up to the spot. You hear the waves firing before seeing them as they pound against the beach. Cars start to pull in and your friends begin piling out, getting their wetsuits on and waxing their boards. The waves are glassy and ranging 3-5ft, perfect for long rides, carving, and party waves. We all leash up and enter the water, heading out the back to be in optimal position to catch waves.

Surfing alone is always therapeutic. Being out in the ocean with no one else around, you feel a connection with nature as you spot the occasional sea turtle or stingray passing underneath your board, or you allow the current to move you down the beach without a care of where you end up. Surfing with a group of friends though is an experience that is difficult to describe. There is no sense of time when you are all out in the water, boosting each other up if someone caught an incredible wave, and there is an extra sense of security in comparison to surfing alone. You are all out there to have an amazing time, but you are also there to watch each other’s back if something were to go wrong. When I think of my future surf trips, this picture of Surf School by Glenn Harper accurately depicts how my friends and I would show up to the beach, figuring out where we would need to head out for the best position and making sure that one of us has a watch on to keep some track of time. The music selection is Sound Reggae by Babylone temoins, as it was the best fit to emulate the laid back, simple lifestyle that surfers often have and brings the photo to life a bit more.

The image that I chose is that of a baby doll, peacefully sleeping in a shop window in Rotherham, England. One would have to look twice to notice that it’s not an actual real baby, but instead a toy doll. One immediate giveaway is the price tag attached at it’s hip. As a father of a four year old daughter, there are “sleeping” babies scattered about in every room of our house. Most days there is nap time where the dolls are carefully put in their “bed”, tucked in, before they drift off to sleep while listening to a calming classical Spotify playlist. I’m interested in how dolls can sometimes “come to life”, and acquire human-like qualities. The doll seems to not be concerned with the day to day commotion outside of the shop’s window.

I feel that the audio clip of someone snoring adds to the whimsical, playful attitude of the doll, while adding a real, human like aspect to the photograph. It reminds me of the many nap sessions that we have in our house and how in my daughter’s eyes, her dolls are much more than lifeless playthings. They have names, personalities, likes and dislikes, etc. They are her friends, sisters, and brothers, who all hold a seemingly important position in our family.

The photo by flickr user budak reminded me of a time in my youth where I began to learn about all the different types of animals and plants that lived around the world from the Discovery Channel. This particular image of the Four-lined tree frog seemed particularly enticing due to its vivid detail and the photographer’s point of view toward it. After adding the music created by Leo Granqvist (sector9000), I believe that it enhanced the photo by helping it to seem much more than a picture but to also place the viewer in the presence of the frog and its environment.

You look through a window of an arcade as they are starting to open. Through that window you see a new game that you haven’t played before in all of its glory. You hear the beeps, bloops, and music that are starting up to get you excited. As you turn around, you got your best friend with you that has a pocketful of quarters that he got from doing chores for allowance. You think to yourself… this is the best day of your life.

I love the arcade and seeing the photo from “Old Video Games at the Manitou Arcade” by ilovemypit makes me want to go back. Seeing the variety of games in that photo makes me think of that moment in life from 1997. The audio of, “retro last level video game loop” by emceeciscokid, provides that sound like I was just in the arcade. The audio aides the photo like the photo is alive and you are about to embark on a fun adventure at one of those machines.

If you were to visit Austin, you’d most likely find yourself crossing the South Congress Bridge to reach one destination or another. Between the months of March and September, you would be met with hundreds of people flocking to this same bridge, Lady Bird Lake below, and the surrounding Ann and Roy Hike-and-Bike Trail. Without much knowledge of the city, you might question whether or not the live music capital of the world was about to put on a grand show, but in actuality, hundreds of people are about to spend their night waiting for the world’s largest urban bat colony to fly out and begin their nightly feast of bloodsucking mosquitoes. 

Comprised of primarily female bats and their newborn pups, the colony communicates to one another using chirping noises similar to the ones heard in the selected Australian Bat South Australia audio. Digifishmusic’s recording enhances buhny’s photo by helping put into perspective a portion of the ambience one would experience when gathering around the guano infested bridge during a warm Texas sunset. 

Although I no longer live in Austin, the two years my husband and I spent in the city were life giving. Lady Bird Lake, renamed after Lady Bird Johnson, is not only the home to the South Congress bridge, but it memorializes our time not only growing academically, but also growing as a family. 

When I embarked on this assignment, I knew immediately that I wanted to find a premodern manuscript image to use, because I have a background in European medieval history and love book history. Fortunately for all of us, there are thousands of digitized manuscripts online, and many of the holding institutions enter the scans into the public domain or share them under Creative Commons licenses. 

While looking through the holdings of the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, I came across the fabulous gentleman pictured. Our bold knight is the frontispiece of a lengthy chronicle about the convocation of the Swiss Confederacy and the subsequent Burgundian Wars (1474-77). He seems paused mid-motion, as if he heard a sound, so I searched for a Creative Commons sound effect that might suit that mood. I settled on a short piece of modern music played on French horn, which is rallying and optimistic but also, to my ear, clearly excerpted from a larger work.

Ho-nee-um Pond by Richard Hurd gives the viewer the feeling of a long cold winter. The image almost makes you feel cold just looking at it. I enjoy landscape images but this one gave me pause. I appreciate the glistening appearance of the lake and all the degrees of grey and white this image has. It gives the impression of being alone in a vast quietness, with nothing around for miles.

Jet Fueled Vixen by Kevin MacLeod caught my attention because of the intensity and momentum of the music. With the harsh sound of the track it can feel almost sinister. Giving a feeling that it belongs in a movie right before the big scene starts.

While the picture gives a cold but serene feeling, adding music with the image changes what one perceives. It almost tells a story…

The storm has passed and there is no sound but your own breathing, something is coming. The snow muffles the sound of who or what is coming from beyond the trees. Crisp cold air chaps the skin as the cold seeps up the legs. The realization hits, you are alone and something is coming.